


cosmic love

by Cyane (orphan_account)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Families of Choice, Fluff, Foster Kid Keith (Voltron), Friendship/Love, Gen, Homesick Lance (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Multi, Rival Relationship, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-18 20:39:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16126310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Cyane
Summary: Lance misses Earth. Keith doesn't.





	cosmic love

**Author's Note:**

> the thing about [voltron’s expressions for time measurements] is i don’t understand it
> 
> Aaaand therefore I really don’t use them. Besides, this is from Lance’s POV and I figure in a fic that takes place relatively early in the series, an Earthling isn’t going to adjust to using terminology like ‘clicks’ and ‘vargas’ all that quickly.
> 
>  
> 
> So I literally have no idea if this is Klance or not, you can pretty much read it how you want. Nothing explicitly romantic or anything, but there are some pretty Klance-y undertones. Probably to be considered pre-slash. <3  
> Title is from Florence + the Machine's _Cosmic Love_ , a song that is literally perfect for all things Voltron.

_That's the thing about space,_ Lance thought bitterly. _There's no such thing as night and day._

Just the endless void of black, never ending galaxies and undiscovered expanses. Sure, they saw suns and moons all the time, but unless they had landed on a planet with particular solar patterns, it was all alien and nothing like the mornings and nights on Earth.

Just another reminder that they weren’t anywhere near Earth, Lance supposed. 

Sometimes he was so homesick it physically hurt, and he woke up early just to spend the next three hours lying in the silence of his own room, praying that by some miracle, they would make it home soon. 

Lance missed the big things, obviously; his family, being on a planet of Humans, the familiarity of it all— but he also missed the little, less signifigant things about Earth. Like the atmosphere that was so distinct from everywhere else, and the droning news channels he used to see on a daily basis, and worms in puddles during rainy days, and—

Those teensy details that he had taken for granted. 

Space was exciting, with new discoveries around every twist and fascinating, mind-blowing secrets of the universe. Hell, with Voltron, Lance was actively saving the universe. 

And he  _did_ like Voltron, and Allura and Coran and the castle, but sometimes... sometimes...

”I just want to go home,” Lance whispered aloud. He immediately winced at how childish he sounded. It didn’t really matter, since by then the rest of the team should be a good three to four hours into their own sleep cycles. 

Lance was happy with Voltron. Just - not all the time. 

Every so often he found himself awake all night, miserable with his own thoughts of the sheer scale of distance between him and his family, his home planet. It was all so very far away. They were just drifting trough the expanse of space, weren’t they? 

Lance’s throat suddenly felt very dry. With an exhausted huff, he hauled himself out of his bed and started towards the dimly-lit kitchen to get a drink. 

 

After sitting around aimlessly at the kitchen table for a few minutes, he took to walking around the castle. He could hear Hunk’s snores as he passed his room, and saw Pidge asleep on the floor of the lab, curled around a piece of machinery that Lance couldn’t even begin to explain. 

He smiled fondly and put his jacket around her, careful not to wake her in the process. 

Already he could feel the tension beginning to ease out of his stomach. Yeah, he had a family that he desperately wanted to get back to, and a planet that he missed terribly— but in some ways, Voltron had become a sort of pseudo-family. A bit more like a ragtag gang of misfit friends, but Lance knew they all cared about each other. Even Keith. 

He was on his way back to his own room when he saw the gladiator training room lights on. 

_Keith?_

Lance popped his head around the door, peering inside the large room. To his surprise, it was empty, although it was clear someone had been using it recently. For one thing, Shiro, Allura, and Coran weren’t careless enough to leave everything out and the lights on. For another, it wasn’t exactly a secret that Keith was notorious for training at every odd hour of the night. Shiro got on his case a lot about that.

“Keith?” Lance whispered, looking around hesitantly. He wasn’t quite sure if he wanted Keith to hear him or not. They might be comerades, but they weren’t exactly... well. 

They weren’t _not_ friends, but they weren’t all that close, either.

Even so, it was the equivalent of the middle of the night, and Lance was bored as hell. If nothing else, pissing Keith off could be fun and take Lance’s mind off of his homesickness. 

Apparently Keith was destined to do the opposite of what Lance wanted for all of eternity, though, since it took another twenty minutes to find the guy. And Lance found him by accident. 

It was one of the empty lower floors, mostly used for storage. It was also on the corner of the ship, so the huge window wrapped around the corner, and a few inches along the floor and ceiling, making for one of the biggest views. Other than the light of the beyond, it was dark. 

And Lance almost tripped over his own feet when he saw the shillouette of Keith’s hair. 

“Keith!” Lance said, unintentionally sounding cheerful, relieved, and much, much too loud. 

Keith jerked in surprise, whirling around with his Bayard materializing in one fluid movement. Within a couple of seconds, Keith was standing, the tip of his sword inches from Lance’s abdomen. 

For a second they both stood there, holding their breath with wide eyes. 

“Jesus _Christ_ , Lance!” Keith exhaled, letting his arm sag and dematerializing the sword. “What the hell are you spying on me for?”

“I’m not spying on you,” Lance retorted, composing himself quickly and crossing his arms against his chest. “I was just... exploring he castle. What are you doing down here, anyway?”

Yeah, when Lance thought about it, what was Keith doing, sitting alone in the dark basement of the castle? 

As the red Paladin mumbled a halfhearted response, Lance started laughing. “Oh my god, you’re _brooding_ , aren’t you? You little sad emo!”

With an irritated huff, Keith turned on his heel and started towards the door. “Whatever. Room is all yours, now.”

Lance sobered, swallowing when he heard the raw note in his teammate’s voice. He couldn’t see his face all that well in the dim light, especially since they had moved away from the glass, but there was a tension to the way Keith stood that he hadn’t noticed before. 

Without really thinking, Lance reached out and grabbed Keith’s wrist, successfully stopping him from leaving and surprising them both.

“Uh,” Lance felt a blush crawling up the back of his neck. “Listen- don’t... you don’t have to leave on my account. I’m not trying to be a jerk. I really was just wondering what you were doing down here.”

Keith was silent for a moment before tugging his arm away from the hold and sighing. 

“It’s fine. I was just thinking.”

“Whaaat? Keith, thinking? Someone alert the—“

“Wha— hey, you’re copying my comeback from yesterday!” Keith sputtered indignantly. 

Lance smirked. “No, no, you’re just mad because I’m hilarious.”

“Seriously. Remember? When you said, ‘I’ve been thinking about those coordinates that Pidge discovered’, and then I said, ‘Lance, _thinking_?’” 

It was pretty obviously prolonged smalltalk, and not something ether of them actually cared about, but it eased the tense atmosphere anyways and Lance felt his own chest relax. 

He couldn’t help adding, “I don’t remember, it didn’t happen,” and then Keith let out a burst of actual, real laughter. 

Holy shit.

“Wow, and here I thought we were finally having another bonding moment you could actually remember,” Keith snorted. He walked back towards the window and slid down, back to where he had been originally sitting. After a second, Lance cautiously joined him. 

Neither of them were in their element. It was an uncomfortable silence, per say, but it definitely wasn’t comfortable— there was a serious air about it, and they weren’t bickering. Lance wasn’t quite sure how to handle this side of Keith. The side that - hell, the side that laughed. Genuinely. 

So instead of facing Keith, Lance turned towards the window to get a look at what Keith was so interested in. 

Nope. It was the same black, inky expanse that they had seen since arriving. They weren’t close enough to any planets to see anything except for tiny, glittering specks dotted everywhere. 

“There sure are a lot of stars out tonight,” Lance said, fluttering his eyelashes, trying to break up the silence with a joke. Unfortunately for him, Keith was an oblivious piece of shit who wouldn’t understand ironic humor if it whacked him in the face. Keith’s lip quirked and he shook his head. 

“Not really, actually. I mean, _yeah_ ,” He amended, seeing the incredulous look Lance was giving him, “There are a lot of stars, but not as many as you’d think. Like, people say all the time that they can see billions of stars on a clear night, maybe even zillions?”

“Yeah...?”

“Yeah. But really, right now, we’re looking at probably ten-thousand stars, at most. Maybe less.”

Lance frowned, examining the limitless area in front of them. 

“Huh?”

“Our minds can’t count all the stars and perceive all the stars at the same time. Basically, our head can’t really look at more than a thousand things before it just sort of- stops counting. Humans can’t do a great job telling the difference between ten thousand things and five million things. So people think that there are millions of stars in their night sky, when really, they can only see a few thousand.”

“Riiiiight,” Lance said, eyebrows furrowing. He was pretty sure there were more stars visible than _ten thousand_. 

Keith noticed the skepticism and rolled his eyes. “If you don’t believe me then feel free to count them all up yourself.”

“So this is what you do at night, Mullet? Sit by yourself in the dark and recite lame facts about space?” Lance winced immediately after saying it, remembering Keith nearly walking out before. For once they actually weren’t at each other’s throats, and—

“Nah. I just think about stuff.”

The silence was more bearable after that. Lance folded his legs up when they started to cramp, readjusting his position to match Keith’s. 

“Wait, why are _you_ here?” Keith suddenly asked, glancing warily at him. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

They were stepping into more dangerous territory. Stuff that rivals really shouldn’t be getting into, because Lance was definitely, definitely not about to talk about his family in front of Keith. They didn’t have the type of friendship where they got emotional about real stuff. 

But that was the crux of it, anyhow, because Lance’s mind caught back onto the thread of his family and he couldn’t help but think of them all. His parents, all of his grandparents, and Luis and Marco and Veronica, and his mom’s cooking and their celebrations, playing games together, hugging his nephews...

And Lance looked back out the window and _nothing_ was familiar. Not the stars, not the constellations, and he was so damn far from everything and everyone he ever cared about— 

“Hey, are you alright?” Keith was staring at him with wide eyes, and Lance was horrified to realize that his eyes were stinging badly. 

Thankful that the lack of unnatural light somewhat preserved his dignity, he hurriedly wiped at his eyes and rested his chin on his hands, elbows on his knees. “I’m fine. I just— I’m just thinking, too. About home.”

It slipped out, pulled from his mouth like Lance just couldn’t keep it in. 

Keith, thankfully, didn't burst out laughing. “Earth?” He asked lightly.

“Yeah. And my family.”

There it was, laid out bare. Homesickness.

Lance twisted his hands so his chin wasn't just resting in his palms, but so they covered the majority of his face and eyes. His stomach was a mess of emotions, feeling something akin to grief or loneliness at the thought of them, mortification that he had been so blatant to _Keith_ , and made the whole situation ten times more uncomfortable for both of them-- but something else. Relief, maybe? A bit lighter, like by saying it out loud he had acknowledged some elephant in a room, and the weight had lifted ever so slightly.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Lance's head jerked up to look at Keith in surprise. He hesitated. "Err..." Because he _did_ , actually, but he knew that to some degree, Keith was just asking out of some awkward sense of politeness, probably.

"You don't have to, if you don't want to. But I'm not just asking so you'll say 'no' and shut up about it, either."

Huh. How about that? 

Lance wrung our his wrists still in front of his head, unsure where to even begin. “Sure. There’s just not much to say. I just miss it all. I want something that I recognize.” He forced his hands away from his face and looked over at Keith. The shorter boy’s eyes were still fixed on something out the window, looking thoughtful. 

“Tell me about them?”

Without even meaning to, a smile cracked across his face. “They’re great,” Lance began quietly, surprised at how honest it felt. “I mean - really great. I have a really big family, they’re loud and sometimes crazy. Lots of siblings and grandparents.”

Jeez, was it weird to spill his soul to Keith.

"They probably think I'm dead," Lance blurted out. He didn't want to think about that. About how his mom would be, if she thought he was dead, and his brothers and sisters... how long had they been grieving for him? What did they even think? And he had left without even saying goodbye...

"I doubt it."

He couldn't help the spike of anxious anger. "Yeah?" Lance snapped. "What do you know about them, huh?"

"From what I've heard, they really care about you," Keith said defensively. "So I don't think they'd just give up on you when they don't have any actual proof that you're dead. I bet they're doing everything they can to find you."

Damn it, Lance's eyes were stinging again. He knew Keith was right-- there was no way in hell they were just sitting around, getting over their grief. He could imagine Veronica and Luis charging up to the garrison demanding answers.

"...and I know that, because I was the same way when Shiro went missing."

Lance knew that there was something between Shiro and Keith. He knew that Hunk and Pidge could see it, too. It was obvious, even if they overlooked the fact that Keith had been going in to save Shiro at the same time they had been. 

Plus, Pidge had mentioned something during the first week, when they had just begun training with the gladiator. Apparently Keith had gotten awfully protective over their leader. 

“You guys are really close.”

For some reason, he stiffened at the statement, eyes narrowing. “You have a problem with that?”

 _Defensive and hotheaded, much?_ “No! But... it’s kind of obvious.”

“He’s family,” Keith said firmly. “And I knew he wasn’t dead. And I know that your family hasn’t given up on you, either.”

There was a whole lot of vehement conviction to his tone. Lance wasn’t quite sure how it had gotten there, seeing as Keith had never even met any of them before. But the conviction gave Lance the slightest bit of relief. 

Someday, he’d see them again. Someday soon. 

“So are you guys cousins or something? What _is_ your family like, anyway? I’ve never heard you talk about them at all.” 

Keith gave him a long, blank look, like he was trying to figure out whether Lance had good intentions or not. Finally he twisted around, leaning one shoulder on the window.

“I, uh... I’m sort of a solo player. You know, ‘lone wolf’? Before this whole mess I lived in my desert place.” 

Lance frowned. _Lived there? In that old, teensy little shack in the middle of absolutely nowhere?_ Seemed a little isolated for his tastes. Besides, it wasn’t like Keith had lived there on his own for his entire life.

“But that was only after you got booted from the garrison, right? 

Now Keith looked distinctly uneasy. “Look, Shiro and I aren’t actually related. I’m - ah. I’m a foster kid. So I got moved around a lot before that. When Shiro went missing I was eighteen, so—“ Keith forcibly cut himself off, running a tired hand through his hair. “Jesus, what’s with the heart to heart, anyways?”

More silence. Lance was getting really sick of the tension between them. He could feel a headache slowly growing in the back of his mind. 

_Foster kid?_ He mulled over, frown deepening. _I guess that makes a lot of sense why Keith never brought it up. I remember that guy from the garrison who was in a foster family- Jacob- and he was never super happy._

He didn’t know a whole lot about foster families, since the idea was so drastically different from his own- big, warm, solid- but Lance knew enough. It wasn’t great. Plus, that meant Keith’s parents were dead, and he didn’t have any brothers or sisters... 

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Lance mumbled. “I was just wondering. I know we’re rivals and everything, but we’re on the same team, too. It wouldn’t hurt for us to get along.”

The stars seemed very far away. 

“Sorry,” Keith responded after a second. “I just can’t really relate. I don’t miss Earth at all. There’s nothing back there for me.”  
Before Lance could even begin to think of what to say to that, Keith nodded in the direction of a far-off cluster of stars. “See that?”

Lance squinted. “I think so. The Gurex System, right?”

Keith blinked in surprise, mouth halfway opened like he had been about to say something. 

“Don’t be _that_ surprised. I’m not a complete failure when it comes to space travel. I’ve been reading up on our next few locations.”

“...Sorry,” Keith said again, sounding honest. 

Lance waved him off. “It’s fine, whatever. What about it?”

“Well, I might not get the whole ‘homesickness’ thing, but it might help if you base distances differently. We’re a long ways off from that system, even though we can see it from here. The castle travels fast, plus we have the lions and wormholes.

“My point is that we might be really, really far away from Earth, but it won’t take a lifetime to get back or anything. Once we stop Zarkon, I don’t think it’ll be all that hard to get home.”

“If you’re making fun of me—“

“I’m not,” Keith said sharply. He exhaled. “I really do believe that.”

“Well, then we better kick some Zarkon-ass soon. I’m not spending the rest of my life floating around as space debris!” Lance stretched, popping several joints in his back. His eyes traced the path they were taking towards the Gurex system. They would be there in a day or so. 

Not long at all. 

“Hey, Mullet?” 

“Yeah?”

Lance flopped over and rolled on his side, finding a comfortable position to lie down on the floor. He was starting to feel sleepy again. “Thanks,” he said, only half-awake to hear Keith’s laugh. 

“Uh-huh. Anytime, _sharpshooter._ ”

Lance’s chest filled with warmth. His family would have to wait for him to save the universe with his team, and Voltron would have to do as the makeshift, ragtag team of misfits that it was. 

When he fell asleep, he fell asleep in front of the expanse of stars. And when he woke up alone with a thin spare blanket over him, he didn’t comment on it. 

It felt more like home already.

**Author's Note:**

> (n˘v˘•)¬ i have no idea what i’m doing 
> 
> Seriously this is unbeta’d so let me know if there are any glaring issues or anything :’) I just wanted to write some weird existential fluff about space.
> 
> I MIGHT end up making this part of a series or doing some extra chapters. No real plot, per say, but lots of one shots similar to this one. Maybe, depending on how this one goes.


End file.
